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2
Dmitry
The room was rank with tension. The two of us stood silently watching the third man, who was backed up against the brick wall, breathing unsteadily. His gray eyes were cast down, the bruising on his face an agglomeration of blues, purples, and greens.It was like a peacock’s feathering gone wrong.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
I lifted the phone up in front of his face, forcing it to his eyes. “Are you going to try telling me this isn’t yours, Evan?” I asked, the threat of violence barely caged behind my softly spoken words. “Da? Did it just fall into your pocket, then?” Though my voice was low, the rage was inherent in my heavily accented vowels.
I didn’t wait for an answer. Grabbing the broken arm that hung from his dislocated shoulder, I jerked his hand up. He let out a wail of protest. I yanked his hand to me and wiped the blood off his fingers with my shirt before forcing his thumb against the fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone.
Just like I had expected, the screen came to life.
The dank air seemed to tighten around us, and my eyes lifted slowly to the gray pair suddenly on me. Fear and defiance warred in their depths, his jaw ticking as he vacillated between the two. “Fell into your pocket with all your biometrics, all without you ever having seen it before, da?” I whispered.
Evan spat out of the side of his mouth, looking away once more. The anger coiled so tightly in my abdomen seemed to explode. I had tried giving him a chance. I had tried being lenient and forgiving. Sometimes a Pakhan had to be.
But I wasn’t a Pakhan—not yet. I was a torpedo,and a damned good one at that.
I jerked his broken arm back even further. I heard a pop from within: the shoulder dislocating further. Then came the sound of ripping muscle. The shrill scream that accompanied it was a soothing balm, but not enough to satiate the fury within me. My other arm cocked back and drove sharply into the edge of Evan’s jaw.
That crack was more satisfactory, echoing throughout the empty room as a small, ivory piece of tooth ejected from Evan’s mouth and hit my chest.
He was supposed to have had answers. He was supposed to have been on our side.
Instead, he had acted as further proof of how deep the infighting was causing our family to stray.How many more of him were there?How many others within our ranks were unhappy with the state of things, tempted by whispers and promises of those seeking to capitalize on my father’s weakness?
My knee jerked up into his stomach, and I leaned into the wall as he doubled over my leg. “You cocksucking, motherfucking. . .” I cut off, my fist ramming back into his face, trading offsides with each punch.
Disloyalty was something I could not abide, although so was the acidic taste of rage that filled my mouth. It was only when I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder that I realized that I had just kept punching without thinking.
Evan hung half over me, rivulets of blood forking across his face, the bruising so expansive that I could no longer see any flesh coloring at all. His eyes were swollen shut, his jaw hanging at an odd angle, and Jason was pulling me even further back.
I didn’t fight the movement, instead I watched as Evan fell forward onto his face. I did, once far enough back, shrug out of Jason’s hold though. With a grunt, I spun on my heel and headed for the exit.
“You find the rest of his messages, da?” I ordered over my shoulder in a strained, tight voice. “Get him fixed up, get him to my father . . . and clean up this goddamn mess.” I scrubbed my face hard with my hands as I stalked out of the room without another word.
I didn’t have time to deal with that.
I’d found what I’d come for and that was that. But every time we found a loose thread, examining it more closely only served to unravel the fabric of things further, revealing even more loose threads to be tracked down. My shoulder blades felt as though there was a steel bar between them, and my stomach churned with an emotion that only seemed to grow the longer the problem sat.
It had been three days. Three days since I had found myself in the middle of nowhere with a hired gun on my tail, shooting bullets aimed to kill. Three days since I’d had to dismember Jacov’s face and take him back to the house in Maplewood. Three days during which I’d stopped taking inventory of my injuries, and I was beginning to wonder whether that had been a mistake.
I was deep in thought during the drive back to my new condo, my jaw tight as I pulled through the gate and into the courtyard in front of the condo. I didn’t have time to take inventory though, as I saw the sleek black Mercedes sitting in front of the house. I hit the brakes more sharply than intended.
Shura was leaning against the hood of his car, arms crossed and his sunglasses glinting in the bright light of the morning as I got out of my vehicle and slammed the door behind me. Shura seemed unperturbed by my anger, barely pushing off of the Mercedes as I approached.
“You fuck a girl on her rag?” Shura asked sarcastically, eying the blood decorating my once expensive suit. He pulled out two cigarettes, lit them simultaneously between his lips, and handed me one.
“You kiss your mother with that fucking mouth?” I groused back, taking the cigarette between my fingertips and inhaling sharply. With a grimace I turned, leaning against his car with him and glaring out into the bright sunlight streaming into the courtyard.
“Da, and she’d be the first to tell you that you look like a fucking walking tampon commercial.” Shura shook his head, his genuine concern buried under his gruff sarcasm. I could feel him observing me still, taking stock of the blood and verifying that it wasn’t mine.
I took another couple of drags, calming that fury still coursing through my blood. “Followed up on that message they got off Jacov’s phone. . . . Took me downtown to Evan.” I said, pausing to take another drag and catching sight of my torn-up knuckles. I could see the confusion pass over Shura’s features, even from the corner of my eye. “Evan, the brigadier under Nielson’s.” I bit the growl back from my tone, gingerly flexing the fingers on my free hand. Shura gave a grunt of acknowledgment.
“Da. . . . Didn’t know he was part of it. But that’s what I came to talk to you about.” Shura shifted, forcing me to look back up at him. His large body blocked out the sun, making it all the easier to see the tension ingrained in his features that I had previously missed. His jaw was tight, the skin taut around his narrowed eyes. “There’s a hit list out. Found it in Jacov’s shit, the cocksucker didn’t even bother trying to hide it.”
My eyebrow lifted slightly. I didn’t understand what that had to do with anything; a hit list for a man like Jacov made enough sense. It certainly wasn’t anything worth remarking on, never mind the seriousness with which Shura seemed to be taking it.
